Thursday, June 17, 2010

Trepassey to St Brides

Here is Karin at the helm doing her 30 minutes as I was doing an hour where by then I would plot our course on the paper chart. Because our auto pilot was not working we had to hand steer. With having to do this we were able to get a better feel as to how Artful handled the different sea conditions and winds, even though it was a hard way to learn. Once we got to Trepassey the wind was on our port side blowing at about 15 knots. This resulted in us being blow onto the dock which we dock on our star board side. We were lucky there was a chap who also was traveling who caught our lines. He was heading on to St John's he has brought his new boat he had bought all the way from Florida. With the wind and sea conditions as they were, it was a rough night being rocked about as well meant for a waited moment in the morning when we were able to get off the dock and on our way to St Brides in the morning. Our departure was around 6:30. This was also the leg to Trepassey of which we went around Cape Race we were amazed how the wind was on our Starboard side and shifted that way all around the cape.

This is us tide off to a fishing boat in Fermeuse Harbour, was a good calm place, with a restaurant close by and as well some gasoline, as it was here that we started making use of our Honda 2000 generator. We found that one tank full would last a day for us which in terms of money was about $3.50. It was here where we also make our first of many attempts on our journey to Halifax to sort out our issues with our auto pilot. We were treated really great here, which started with such treatment through out our entire journey. We found it cold here as well so we kept our propane fireplace going, along with an electric blanket for the bed, I must say was a good item to have and sure recommend it to others as well, it was good for cuddling. After our day of rest we departed on the 17th of May with first again trying to swing our compass and fit the auto pilot, again didn't work, and if your not sure what I mean by swing our compass, we didn't swing it around our heads we sailed out into the harbour and turned the boat in a small circle, to try and set our boat deviation, more on that later in a post.

Just leaving the dock, as we have turned and are heading out to the Narrows.

Just entering the Narrows leaving the Harbour

Also just entering the Narrows looking back into the Harbour

Just now coming out of the Narrows and heading on over for Cape Spear, seas were not to bad here but we could see some waves ahead and they were breaking.

In the Narrows also just entering the sea

This is looking again back as we are leaving the Narrows and St John's Harbour.The trip on an average sail would have taken us about 9 to 10 hours, but on this day with seas at about 9 to 10 feet on our Port side and breaking with also a 15 to 20 knot wind gusting at times to 30 plus knots we made our first leg of the trip in just 6 and a half hours. This was a good start although we realize we have to store things a little better as there was a bit of a mess inside the boat. So with that we decided we would spend a day of rest and get better organized in Fermeuse.

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About Us

Guess I've always been a dreamer, yet here I've found the dream which has been deep within. Its been said that I'm a chameleon, very adaptable, and I'm guessing so as seem to always land on my feet.

Now Karin she is the Tourist, a one task person, but very good for me. She is a very private person, but one who can be a real spark plug at times, and I beleive we are each very good medicine for each other